On: The Fall of Eclipse (2016)

[tootie]

I feel like VS Code is on it's way to becoming the next generation of Eclipse. It's a great platform, but now it's practically just a plugin framework. I'm hoping the maturation of the open source world will have us not repeat the same mistakes.

Classic Eclipse plugins were all either created by big software vendors who wanted to create a good developer experience for their products or eager amateurs who were scratching an itch. VS Code plugins are more like good open source projects that have contributors and reviewers and frequently sponsors. Microsoft is strongly supporting it, but not with a heavy hand even if it cannibalizes some Visual Studio sales.

[lou1306 → tootie]

In my opinion, The problem with Eclipse is not that it turned into a plugin framework, but that it ended up being an IDE framework.

Too many knobs. All IDEs are customizable to some degree, but they try and maintain a general sense of coherence. Eclipse, not so much.

[nxc18 → tootie]

You could be on to something. There are quite a lot of Java sessions scheduled for Microsoft's Build conference this year.

Certainly Eclipse has left them plenty of room to swoop in, perhaps as the alternative to IntelliJ.